Quite recently we finished a website project for the wonderful Krista of Be Food Savvy. She's an awesome gal with a wonderful mission -- helping people find the foods and nutritional lifestyle that helps them thrive.

She came to us with a SquareSpace to WordPress project. I love working on these types of projects. Why? Because I love working in both CMS. People always have such great, thoughtful reasons for going from one to the other and it always presents a great opportunity to make small, but really impactful, changes to the site.

With Krista's move we focused on three things:

Improving what's "above the fold": We wanted more important information available to folks when they first landed on the site

Prettying up the style: We kept the primary color scheme, but we updated the font story and made the CSS/style consistent throughout the site

Integrating e-commerce: Switching to WordPress provided Krista with more e-commerce options. SquareSpace has a great one built-in, but it can be limiting depending on your needs.

Here's how the site looked before (above the fold only):

And here's how it looks now (again, just above the fold):

The finished product is brighter, better organized and easier to read. I love how much you learn when first landing on the site compared to before. I also love the new background, it's so eye-catching. We couldn't be happier with the result.

In the WordPress world you can typically find a free plugin that does exactly what you need. But, occasionally circumstances warrant buying a premium plugin. Recently, I was looking for a really nimble, smart WordPress slideshow plugin. I tried and tried all of the usual suspects that have worked for previous clients, but the look I was going for on this current project just simply couldn’t be accomplished. So, I headed over to CodeCanyon, one of my favorite resources, and discovered Royal Slider.

Not gonna lie folks, this WordPress slideshow plugin rocks my socks. Not only is it easy to use, but the presentation is beautiful across every single device I’ve tested on. It’s full screen capabilities are particularly pretty.

As a web designer and developer my time is valuable. When I find a plugin that not only works beautifully, but saves me time, well…I fall in love. I highly recommend the Royal Slider.

I love type and fonts, so I spend a lot of time browsing sites like MyFonts.com to see what's new in font design and to keep an eye on old favorites.

I see a lot of people into using script fonts at the moment in their branding, but everyone seems to want to use the exact same (and often free) fonts. The fact of the matter is that if you're willing to spend just a little bit of cash you can get a beautiful font, far more glyphs (aka alternate characters) and help your brand stand out from all the others that use the freebies.

Want to know my top tip for buying premium fonts? If you're not in a rush, keep an eye on your favorites. Sites like MyFonts put different styles, creators and collections on sale at various time throughout the year. Sometimes you can get a premium font for a huge discount if you get the timing right.